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Analysis: Yahoo's telecommuting edict isn't unique

SAN FRANCISCO -- Marissa's Rules are breaking the rules. Or are they? Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's edict banning company employees from working at home isn't some contrarian view that will send shock waves

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's edict banning company employees from working at home isn't some contrarian view that will send shock waves throughout Silicon Valley.

It's simply a reflection of a typical work week at the valley's leading innovators.

Google, Apple and Facebook encourage face-to-face collaboration, though they don't openly discourage telecommuting. Indeed, most tech companies do not have formal policies -- it usually is a mix of working onsite and at home, based on the project and managers involved.

Give and take is essential in engineering and marketing, for example. Without some structure and interaction, product development would be more difficult, say employees at Google and Apple who spoke on background.

Despite hue and cry from telecommuting advocates, who point out nearly 10% of U.S. workers do their jobs from home at least once a week, Mayer's decision, which takes affect in June, is rooted in her experience as a former Google executive. There, employees at the Googleplex headquarters are often required to be there. Workers in satellite offices were in constant contact via teleconferencing.

(It also helped that Google has world class food, medical facilities and gyms onsite.)

Mayer, who was named Yahoo CEO while pregnant, famously returned to work at Yahoo two weeks after giving birth to her son.

Although Mayer did not spell out the reason for the directive, the true intention may be to improve productivity, says a former Yahoo executive who recently departed for another tech job. He says the move away from telecommuting might result, in part, in shedding low-performance employees.

"We don't discuss internal matters," Yahoo spokeswoman Anne Espiritu said in a statement today. "This isn't a broad industry view on working from home -- this is about what's right for Yahoo, right now."

Mayer has shaken Yahoo out of its doldrums with acquisitions and executive appointments since she assumed control. The company's stock is up 50% and displayed a verve and energy lacking the past few years.

While Mayer could have handled the situation better -- a tough-minded memo was most likely leaked by disgruntled employees -- not everyone at Yahoo is upset. Some workers, quoted anonymously on Quora, say they welcome the change.